Jac's roundup of pop culture news and Internet findings

American Idol’s 14th season
premiered last week and if you think you shouldn’t care because Ryan Seacrest
makes you uncomfortable, you are wrong. Well, not about the Ryan Seacrest part — he is
very distracting. Like, why is he still around? How much does he get paid to be
a weirdo to young singers? Is he actually a robot? What really happened to Brian Dunkleman? But you should be excited because Cincinnati’s own Jess Lamb is on it, and
there’s a very good chance she’ll go far in the competition.
I typically don’t watch the
music competition shows like Idol and
The Voice, because witnessing genuine
humans be embarrassed on television really upsets me. But when I heard Jess
Lamb had auditioned and got the golden Hollywood ticket, I had to give the show a
shot. Jess is a great local artist and I camped next to her at Bonnaroo one year, so I'm pretty much famous by proxy.Anyway, at 28 years old, Jess is painted as the mature one of the auditioning bunch, which is
probably going to make you feel like a shriveled French fry at the bottom of a
car. But with her age (seriously, I can’t) comes a breadth of talent and
experience. She writes and performs her own songs but — judging by her
audition — has no trouble with the traditional covers Idol necessitates.
Jess auditioned in Kansas
City, Mo., and got a great reaction from the judges, particularly crooner Harry
Connick, Jr. Check it out:
Auditions will continue
every Wednesday and Thursday for the next couple weeks, so we won’t be seeing
much of Jess again until the final 48 contestants are narrowed down to 24 after
a performance in front of a live audience (this has already been filmed). So, will
Jess make the cut? Idol teased us
with a “look” — or rather, listen — at the top 24. You can hear them sing but
can’t really make out anyone’s face. Judge for yourself.
All I can make out is a Captain Hook-looking dude with dreads. GO JESS.
Remember the uber-sleazy
Gaston from Beauty and the Beast? You
know the song, “No one's slick as Gaston/No one's quick as Gaston/No one does push-ups in the middle of an
amusement park like Gaston…” What? Yes.
Sia’s “Chandelier” girl
is back, and she’s dance-battling in a dirty cage with Shia LaBeouf, which some
people are NOT OK with.
Also, why did I just learn
that the little girl, Maddie Ziegler, is from Lifetime gem Dance Moms?!
Speaking of times when we
all get sucked into Wikipedia holes… Rapper T.I. is basically a suicide prevention
specialist. This isn’t news, but it’s new to me (please don’t ask why I’m Internet-searching
random rappers at night). Seriously, “Rescue of suicidal men” is a sub-section
on his Wikipedia page. In 2010, he stopped a young man from taking his life by
convincing him to not jump off a 22-foot Atlanta building. T.I. heard about the
situation on the radio, drove to the scene and asked police if there was
anything he could do to help. Pretty incredible. But before that, in 2006, T.I. discovered a struggling Scott Stapp
after the Creed frontman had jumped over his hotel balcony (whether this was a suicide
attempt or the result of insomniac hallucinations varies in reports). Can
we have T.I. intervene on Scott Stapp again please? Side note: Awesome reality
show idea. For real, though, dude seems like he needs it.
On a lighter note, here’s a
Larry David Lynch blog!
Parks and Recreation’s final season premiered last night. Jurassic World will be unleashed into theaters this summer. Chris
Pratt stars in both. Relevant:
American Crime Story casting news! If you recall, Ryan Murphy is spinning off on his American Horror Story miniseries
franchise with a true crime series. The idea is to explore a different criminal
case in American history each season, like how each AHS season explores fear and freaky folklore in a different arena.
The series’ debut will focus on the O.J. Simpson trial. Cuba Gooding, Jr.will play O.J., David "Forever Ross" Schwimmer will play Robert Kardashian and John Travolta will play Robert Shapiro. So much wut.This dog takes a bus to the
dog park and knows to get off at the appropriate stop — alone — which is more than I can
say about myself.
The Golden Globes, a.k.a Amy
‘n’ Tina’s Sleepover Party, were Sunday. The duo kicked ass in their final
hosting gig, don’t get me wrong, but overall the show left me wanting something
more exciting. Maybe it was the fact that the awards were so spread out. There
were big winners, for sure (Transparent,
Boyhood), but there were a lot of new
winners (which yields heartfelt but otherwise boring speeches) and no one show
or film truly swept.
If anything, it gave me a
bunch of new movies and shows to add to my watch-list. Peep the nominees and
winners here, if
you care, but the best part of the production was the monologue.
TinAmy were perfection. They
even killed it with a Cosby rape joke that certainly shook up the audience. Nothing
like seeing rich, famous celebrities panic over whether it’s OK to laugh.Other notes:
Leelah Alcorn — the local
transgender teen who took her own life earlier this month — got a shout out
from Transparent creator Jill Soloway.
The stars of Fifty Shades of Grey couldn’t muster enough chemistry to present an award, so that’s probably not a good sign…
George Clooney got a
lifetime achievement award and said nice things about his new wife.
Chrissy Teigen ugly-cried
when husband John Legend accepted an award with Common.
And that’s about it! Of
course, the Oscars are the pinnacle of awards season, and those nominees will
be announced Thursday.

In desperate need to bolster his low popularity numbers, Gov. John Kasich visited Cincinnati Tuesday to praise a deal that allows a local company to expand downtown and add jobs. Dunnhumby USA, a retail branding firm, will move from Third Street to a long vacant site at Fifth and Race streets, where it will build a new complex and add 550 jobs. Dunnhumby is getting the maximum 15 years of state Job Creation tax credits to help with the move.The head of faculty at Xavier University is questioning the college president's abrupt, unilateral decision to stop offering birth control coverage in insurance for faculty and staff. Shannon Byrne, faculty committee chair, says President Michael J. Graham’s announcement Monday might violate XU's own rules about how such decisions can be made. She is scheduling a meeting April 12 so faculty can discuss the situation and decide how to respond.ARTIMIS signs are supposed to alert motorists to traffic congestion and missing persons, but area residents have said they've noticed a lot of them don't work. As a result, transportation officials say 29 malfunctioning ARTIMIS signs will be replaced as part of upcoming construction projects on Interstates 471 and 275. All of the upgrades will be completed by July.A Waynesville High School student is suing the school district for preventing him from wearing a T-shirt to class that depicted a pro-gay message. Maverick Couch wants to wear the shirt, which states “Jesus is not a homophobe,” to school on April 20 to show support for the Day of Silence, a national event that draws attention to the silencing of gay and lesbian students through bullying. School officials, however, initially told Couch the shirt was disruptive and later that it was too religious. Now they allege it violates rules prohibiting clothing that is “sexual in nature,” which Couch's attorney said is “absurd.”Yahoo! Sports has released the rankings of Major League teams with the most players claimed in fantasy baseball leagues, and some Reds are among the sought-after stars. The Yankees and Rangers tied for the top spot as most popular on Yahoo!. Both teams have 13 players owned in at least 50 percent of Yahoo! Leagues. But the Reds also make a good showing, with seven players owned in at least 50 percent of the fantasy leagues. In news elsewhere, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney left his rival, Rick Santorum, in the dust Tuesday. Romney won all three primaries that were held — in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia — and emerged with substantial gains in delegates.Despite widespread opinion to the contrary, a private investigator alleges in a new book that O.J. Simpson didn't murder his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, in 1994. Instead, William C. Dear said his inquiry revealed that O.J. was covering up for the real culprit: Jason Simpson, O.J.'s son from his first marriage. Dear said he discovered a knife in a storage unit that was rented by Jason that he believes is the murder weapon, along with a forged time card from the night of the killings. Dear alleges that Jason Simpson was working as a chef in a Beverly Hills restaurant that day and had put together a special meal for the family. Brown didn't attend, however, angering him. The P.I. said Jason was on probation for assaulting his previous employer with a knife and has spent time in a psychiatric unit.If you're an evangelical Christian, you might want to skip this next item. A new medical study finds that older adults who say they've had a life-changing religious experience — in other words, are “born again” — are more likely to have a greater decrease in size of the part of the brain critical to learning and memory. Researchers asked 268 people, ages 58 to 84, about their religious affiliation, spiritual practices and life-changing religious experiences. Over the course of two to eight years, changes to the hippocampus were monitored using MRI scans. The researchers suggested that stress over holding religious beliefs that fall outside of the mainstream may help explain the findings. Or they're just stupid.A major Chinese analyst said the senior leadership of the Chinese government increasingly views the competition between the United States and China as a zero-sum game, and believes the United States is a declining power that is trying to disrupt China's economic and military growth. Wang Jisi revealed his findings in a monograph published this week by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.Hafiz Saeed, the leader of a Pakistan-based group blamed for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, has demanded proof after the United States announced a $10 million bounty on his head. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Saeed said the U.S. action was prompted by his organizing rallies against the reopening of military supply lines through Pakistan to NATO forces in Afghanistan.

I shuffled the deck, and the psychic told me to ask two questions. "Will boyfriend and I end up together?" I asked. She looked at the cards. "Does his name start with an S?" "No." "An M?" "J," I offered to save time. She asked if he had green eyes. He didn't.

A local judge put the smack down last week after a defendant mumbled that it was bullshit that he'd have to stay in jail until his court date. Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman thought that an alleged Northside Taliband gang member saying "bullshit" in his courtroom was actually bullshit itself, so he sentenced him to six months.